Since the earliest days of the Industrial Revolution, industry has struggled to safely conduct plant maintenance and other necessary work within hazardous environments. Prior to the second half of this century, most such hazardous environments involved hazardous chemical agents. Since 1950, such hazardous environments may also involve radioactive agents. Industry is continuously working towards improving equipment and techniques which will make working within such hazardous environments safer.
The nuclear power industry has been especially active in this regard. The problem faced by the nuclear power industry is how to safely conduct maintenance and other necessary work within the large confining structures or areas wherein potential sources of radioactivity are typically housed. Work within such confining structures requires extensive efforts to minimize dangers to workers from exposure to radioactive material. Such efforts have included the employment of personal dosimeters to monitor the individual radiation exposure of each worker. Also, such efforts have increasingly included the use of audio communication tools, such as walky-talkies, hardwired intercoms and cellular phones. Use of such tools allow supervisory personnel located outside the confining structure or area to assist in a more efficient--and, therefore, a more swift--completion of the work within the hazardous area.
Traditionally, personal dosimeter devices have been attached to the protective clothing of the worker by tape or other ad-hoc means. Under working conditions, the dosimeters tend to become dislodged from the clothing of the worker. Accordingly, there is a need for worker protective clothing which can simply and efficiently retain personal dosimeters.
The use of audio communications equipment has also experienced problems. Because the work area is generally extremely noisy, audio communication requires the use of a head set. The head sets are bulky and difficult to use with conventional head gear of the prior art. When the head set is worn on the inside of the head gear, the hear gear, often will not fit. When worn on the outside of the head gear, the user often has difficulty hearing voice communication through the head set. Also, when the head set is worn on the outside of the head gear, the head set frequently slips about on the head of the user or falls off altogether.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved head gear for use by workers working in hazardous environments which avoids the above-described problems in the prior art--in an efficient and inexpensive manner.